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Tuesday, September 14, 2010

"A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path."-- Agatha Christie

Monday, September 6 - Labor dayI woke up with contractions at 2:30 am. I got up and decided to do some last minute cleaning, seeing as how I was not sleepy. They continued to come every 5-7 minutes apart. They were not that bad, but bearable...sorta like a menstrual cramp. Since Saturday's contractions only lasted a few hours, I figured it would be the same today, so I decided to wake up Joel if they continued on until 7:00 am. Well they did, and so I woke him up and told him that I had been contracting, and that if they continued we should go to the hospital around 9ish. I asked him to take a shower,and after his shower, would he mind timing the contractions for me so I could rest in between them. Of course he said okay, and after an hour of that I decided to get up and start cleaning the house/packing my bag and getting last minute things together. We ended up getting to the hospital at 11:15am. I was still hesitant to go to the hospital. I just didn't want to be sent away and be embarrassed, but Joel said it's better to be safe than sorry.

So we get there, and we are immediately hooked up to the monitors (baby and contraction) and for the next hour we are assessed and she checked me for dilation (1 1/2 cm). During this time, the machine also checked my blood pressure, and it showed it to be higher than normal. The nurse came in at around 1:00ish and said "Well since you're here, and the baby is overdue, we might as well send you downstairs and check your fluid"...and so we headed downstairs. To my further embarrassment, the technician was a male. However we got through it, and went back upstairs.

As we walked through the door, the nurse said to us, "Guess who's staying?"....at that moment, reality hit. We were about to have this baby soon; real soon! We decided to call my mom, as she is 3 hours aways. Apparently, I had low fluid. What should have been around 7-8cm of fluid was 3.5cm. Time to get the birth plan out right? Wrong!

And so preparations were made to get me into active labor with Pitocin. I told the nurse I did not want pitocin, but she told me that sometimes we have to think what is best for the baby, and the reason why we needed to get pitocin started was because we had such low fluid, and that was not healthy for the baby. So I consented.

Around 5:30pm my mom made it to the hospital, and boy was I ever glad to see her. There is just something so comforting about seeing your mom. Joel was getting hungry, and so I told him to go get something to eat. He went out to eat with a few friends (and they stopped by to say hello before heading out to bring me back my "After I have this baby dinner" of Chipotle) I was determined to have this baby before 10:00 pm...lol.

I labored for 17 hours (of which 5 were with the pitocin being increased every 45 minutes)before it started to get really bad. I decided to wait until Joel got back before I made any decisions. I wanted this birth to be as natural as possible, but the way things were going it was far from my birth plan and what I wanted. When Joel came back around 7:00pm, I waited another half an hour. The nurse came in to check me (only at 2cm...WHAT! You mean this pitocin isn't working?...all this time of laboring has been for nothing??) and said she needed to up the pitocin...I just couldn't handle it. My body was shaking so bad from the contractions, I was unsure how much more of the pitocin I could handle. She told me she had to up the pitocin in order to get my body to dilate or we would be laboring like this for 2 days.

I was left in a dilemma. Do I up the pitocin? Do I just get an epidural? Can I handle this? What about my birth plan? This is not what I wanted!!!

In the meantime, my blood pressure was all over the place and that kept making the babys heart beat drop and he was stressing out. I had to think about the baby. So I consented to an epidural....

I felt like a failure...all I did was cry through the whole thing and kept saying I did not want this. Joel was trying to be comforting, but it just wasn't working. Then in the middle of the needle being put in my back, my nose starts running. Anyone who knows me, knows that I am super self conscious....and so I asked the nurse for some tissue because of my nose. I am sure that they were all looking at me like I am weirdo...here this needle is going in my back, and all I can think about is my nose running...lol

2 comments:

Valerie
said...

Oh Angela...I'm so excited and thrilled for you and Josiah's safe arrival (as I've said several times now!) but I just want to cry with you at the way your birth went. First of all, you are NOT a failure! You carried this beautiful creation of the Lord's to full term (and then some ;)) and your body did what it was supposed to do! Josiah was born in God's timing and in His perfect will...just because you needed to have the epidural doesn't make you a failure (despite feeling like it...I know, been there done that! :)). Pitocin is insane from what they tell me (I think I mentioned that all four of my vag births were pit induced so it's all I know!) and brings on contractions so much harder and faster than the body's own natural oxytocin. I look forward to reading the rest of your birth story...I'm a birth junkie and love to hear as much or as little as women will tell! :D Just know that there are those out there that understand...and a failure you are not! :D